1
She hummed as she went about her morning routine of washing her face, dressing in something warm and comfortable before making a modest breakfast of bacon and eggs. Sometimes she added toast, but not this time. That was her choice. She’d had so few in her life and now she seemed to revel in the simplest of choices. They made her feel alive.
She laughed to herself as she thought about how silly it was to feel proud of herself for deciding not to have toast, but it was a little piece of her power that she had taken back from the monsters of her past.
A chill skittered up her spine at the thought of her past.
“You are safe now.” She told herself in a voice that shook from terror so much a part of her she didn’t know if she would ever shake it.
She had gotten stronger. It wasn’t very often that she allowed the fear to overcome her anymore. She was free of him, all of them. Those blood sucking vampires that drained her until she couldn’t lift her head. Those animals who needed her blood to survive. How many others had she seen brought in, tested, drained? How many had she watched die because they weren’t useful enough?
Hundreds.
There had been so many. Young. Innocent.
She saw their faces in her head. So many faces. Tears, fear, pleading for help that would never come. Eyes filled with desolation when they realized that no help would come. Acceptance as they no longer fought against the devils that held them captive.
Death had been a mercy, kept too long from those who deserved better.
She had learned that lesson. Death was not an evil or vile thing, it was a mercy.
It was, at times, the only option.
She had been innocent once too. There had been a time when the horrors of her life hadn’t touched her. She couldn’t remember back to before, but she knew that there must have been a time when he life was more than pain and of fear. She heard the songs in her head, a sweet voice, a remembered embrace, but she couldn’t see the faces or recall their names or even her own.
She pressed her hands to the sides of her head and squeezed her eyes shut.
Why couldn’t she remember?
She took deep breaths and tried to make the past disappear again, but it was there in the sickness she felt in her belly and the heaviness she felt in her heart. Today would be tainted with it, but tomorrow would be new again.
In that was hope.
She stood at the sink and drank hot coffee as snow began falling outside her window. This was perfect, everything she’d always wanted and it was all hers. She’d escaped hell and nothing mattered more than living each moment, enjoying each moment, breathing in the freedom.
She still couldn’t believe it sometimes. It was like a dream.
She wondered what had happened to the man, the guard who had helped her, but she knew he was probably dead, like anyone who had ever tried to make her life better.
He killed them.
Even the cook who put extra honey in her tea. He’d killed her and he’d made her watch, to understand that there was no one who could help her.
She let out a breath and decided to stack some of her firewood on the little front porch so she wouldn’t have to trudge through the snow for it later. The cold would help her put it all away. All the memories. She wouldn’t let them haunt her on such a beautiful morning. She would breathe her air and live her simple life and she would find a way to enjoy her day.
She looked at her heavy boots that stood by the door and then down at her thin-soled slippers. She should pull the boots on. It wasn’t good to get her feet cold, she could get sick. If she got sick, she wasn’t worth as much… She gritted her teeth against the words that were burned into her brain. So many rules. So many ways she’d been made to live so she would be more useful.
It was snowing, but she wasn’t going far and the snow wasn’t deep yet. There was no harm in going out in the light snow. She was wearing shoes. She would be fine for just a second, just a quick trip across the yard, maybe two. No need to drag on those heavy boots...but maybe…
She laughed at herself and shook her head. She was being silly.
She shrugged on her coat and pulled open her heavy door, it was just made of rough wood, but it had charm and it was sturdy. She didn’t care for fine things anymore, never really had, she liked simple best. Simple and safe were her favorite things now.
She stepped out onto her porch and froze. There he sat, in her favorite split bottomed rocker.
Benjamin Rockton.
The man that had haunted her dreams for twelve years. The man that had been her task master, her torturer, her husband.
He was dressed in a perfectly pressed suit that she knew had cost more than most people made in a year. His hair was styled perfectly to hide the slight thinning along the crown of his head and his face was tanned just enough to look handsome without looking like he’d actually had any fun.
He was the picture of elegant business man and he was the devil himself.
She shook with fear as he stood.
Ben wasn’t a large man, smaller than average in every way, but it wasn’t his size that made him dangerous. It was the size of his bank accounts.
“Well, look what I’ve found. Seven months, three weeks and two days. That is how long you have inconvenienced me. That is how long you have disappointed me and even embarrassed me. That is how long you have made my clients suffer and my profits drop.” He shook his head in disappointment. He held out his arms and she took a step back. His thin lips curved in a thin smile at her fear.
“Hello Dara.”
She couldn’t speak. She wanted to argue that Dara wasn’t her name, but she couldn’t remember what it really was anymore. She wanted to scream, fight, but she knew he would hurt her if she got too close, she knew the ways he would hurt her, never enough to kill her or waste her precious blood, but enough to immobilize and terrorize.
She took a step back, but caught movement out of the corner of her eye. He’d brought his guards with him, his dogs. The men who had watched, laughed, cheered him on as he’d tortured her. The men who had stood guard as he’d loaned her out, used her and hurt her more than any person should endure, but oddly, they had also protected her because in this world there were bigger monsters than even Benjamin.
She’d seen the lust in their eyes though and she knew that in a way, Ben protected her from them too. He’d always told her so and she believed him. It turned her stomach to feel grateful, but she did. He’d always told her that he would allow them to hunt her if she ran away, but that had been a lie. He would never risk her life, she was too valuable.
She’d gotten away from him and she’d been so careful, but he’d found her. How? How did he always get his way? There shouldn’t have been a trace of her, but he’d found her, just as he’s always promised he would.
Ben reached for her and she shrank away. Bile boiled in her stomach and something surged inside her. She felt a surge of strength and a cold determination. She would never go back, never. The look in his eyes told her that he thought she was still weak, but he was wrong. Something had happened to her while she’d been free, something she couldn’t explain. He thought she was still weak, but that would cause him to underestimate her. No, she couldn’t fight him and she didn’t know if it was strength or weakness, but she would never go back. There was another escape.
She would die first.
She saw him look away and took that second to run. She jumped over the railing of the porch, slipped between two of his guards and into the dense forest. They would track her, she knew it, but it would take time. The cold worked in her favor as did the snow that now fell in heavy sheets.
She heard cursing and heavy footsteps, but she knew he wouldn’t allow them to chase her in the fur. He didn’t trust them not to kill her. Their animals were too unpredictable and Benjamin, for all his swaggering, was just a man. His money could control men, but it would do little to protect him from the animals housed inside them.
She ran until her feet ached and cursed herself for not slipping on the heavy boots that had been by her door.
“Always trust yourself.” She whispered as she felt a rock cut deep into her foot.
Who had told her that? Why did those words echo so clearly in her ears in times like this? Why did it feel like someone was out there, looking, missing her?
She shook her head. She had no time for daydreams now.
No one was out there. No one cared. If they had, they would have found her, but no one had ever come for her. She was alone and she had only herself to depend on.
She had to escape.
Trust yourself.
The words pounded in her head as she took a turn that would lead her into a deeper part of the forest. She’d explored, but not this way and she wasn’t sure where she was going. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but getting away, no matter what that meant.
She felt something cut deep into her foot again and had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out. She didn’t dare stop to look at the damage and prayed the blood wouldn’t soak through to leave a trail in the snow. The coppery scent of blood hit her nose and she wanted to cry. If she could smell it, they would have no trouble picking it up, them or the other predators in the forest.
She forced her legs to move faster as she veered deeper into the forest. She would take a bear over the monsters that chased her, at least it would end her suffering.
She knew where a deep ravine was, knew that if she could reach it she would throw herself over the edge rather than go back to the hell she had lived for too long, but she needed to go the other way.
Trust yourself. Keep going.
The voice kept urging her on until she was lost, everything looked the same and she had no hope of finding her way back again.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Nothing mattered.
Time fell away as she ran for her life, ran from the monsters that had filled her life for too long. Ran from the fear of never seeing another day. Ran from the pain of losing the only freedom she’d ever known.
The days were shorter, if she could last until dark…